A thought on Intelligence behind Design

Barry,

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What do you think of PaulK's example of how human intelligent driven creativity differs from the way evolution works?

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What do you think about it? It might be very relevant to your assertion that the similarities between human design and evolution somehow point to Intelligence behind evolution. What do the differences between the two processes suggest?And again, I say you could claim that anything and everything is the product of an as-yet-unverifiable Intelligence. But you can't call the claim a scientific one.------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerco es el Rey.

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You are erecting a strawman argument against ID and then patting yourself on the back for knocking it down. Now here is what ID theorists are really saying if you're interested.

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1. Certain key evolutionary changes may have been due to intelligent intervention.

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2. Evolution may have been front-loaded such that its unfolding was channeled.

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3. Evolution was designed such that it could acquire new information over time.

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4. Permutations of 2, 3, and 4.

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You talkin' to me?Once again, we get a pronouncement from on high, courtesy of the keeper of the holy books of Intelligent Design Creationism. Once again, we have to give the high priest the same answer.Warren, intelligent intervention certainly may have caused evolutionary changes or directed the course of life on earth. However, we see no evidence of that, and so it may be beyond the scope of science to make the case one way or the other.It's conceivable that the weather and gravity and people getting sick are due to the workings of a divine intelligence as well, but we accept materialistic mechanisms to explain thunderstorms, landslides, and disease. In the same way, I accept the materialistic explanations for biological complexity, because we haven't seen evidence that biological organisms and structures thereof are accessible to the mechanism of intelligent design. Have you?------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerco es el Rey.

Barry and Warren both have their reasons for suspecting a purpose-driven intelligence behind the evolutionary process. Barry sees the evolutionary development of human intelligent creativity and decides that this must have been the purpose of the evolutionary process. Warren sees the functional complexity of biological structures and decides that this must have been the purpose of the evolutionary process.I have argued that other things could be (and have been in the past) considered the products of creative intelligence: the weather, or disease. Both have fully acceptable material explanations: we understand the weather in terms of electrical polarity, air pressure, and atmospheric saturation levels. We understand disease as bacteria or viruses coming into contact with the human immune system. Both Barry and Warren argue that the material mechanisms presented as explanations for biological complexity are insufficient because they fail to take into account the purposeful, creative intelligence that may or may not be directing evolution.Teleology seems to be only where we look for it, and is always where we want to find it. If certain things in nature are complex and functional, it is because they were Intelligently Designed. If certain things in nature do not look Intelligently Designed, that's only because we don't yet understand the purpose of their Intelligent Design.Human intelligence evolved over billions of years, persuasive evidence of Intelligent Design. We're not allowed to ask whether human intelligence evolving in, say, twenty years would be better evidence for Intelligent Design. If it had, that too would be evidence of Intelligent Design. We have five keen senses, persuasive evidence of Intelligent Design. We're not allowed to ask why an Intelligent Designer wouldn't have given us, say, a hundred senses. If He had, that too would be evidence of Intelligent Design.Anything can be offered as evidence of Intelligent Design, and no conceivable evidence can falsify it. The fact that Intelligent Design only seems to create mousetraps and outboard motors but has never created a tree or a baby or a flagellum is not a reason to think that it couldn't, and that maybe someday we'll be able to detect it in some way. Maybe.------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerco es el Rey.[This message has been edited, as if it makes any difference, by MrHambre, 08-05-2003][This message has been edited by MrHambre, 08-05-2003]

Warren writes:

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We associate machines and codes with intelligent design not geochemistry. You want to make the case that codes and machines can be produced via non-intelligent processes? Then present your case. I'm all ears.

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We associate trees and babies with biochemistry, not intelligent design. You want to make the case that trees and babies can be produced via intelligent processes? Then present your case. I'm all ears.------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerco es el Rey.

Barry,I assume this is the question you want answered:

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And, you may have some other evidence that the design we see in nature does not have some kind of undiscovered, universal presence of direction or design that is part of it’s nature? What is it?

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This question has been challenged by everyone on this forum. Holmes, Asgara, Crashfrog, Peter, and numerous others have asked how we would recognize the handiwork of this undiscovered, universal presence and we have never been satisfactorily answered. Our resident IDC theorist here has even said the burden is on us to figure out how to differentiate Intelligent Design from the design of mechanistic processes. Needless to say, we're at a loss to do so.I am astounded by the diversity and complexity of life on Earth. The replication/variation/selection process has been operating on Earth for billions of years, and its products are extremely varied. It has produced human intelligence, and also many different types of animal instincts that vary only in degree from human intelligence. It has produced many different modes of existence: stationary plants that photosynthesize and depend on insects or herbivores for their replication, animal predators who feed off of plants and other animals and reproduce sexually, parasites who depend fully on their hosts even for replication.The operation of the replication/variation/selection process over these billions of years has created strange designs and bizarre complexity. Its greatest achievement in terms of variation has been insects, whose different forms are mind-bogglingly numerous. The key to this process is survival, not beauty or goodness or any higher principle. The fossil record is littered with the remnants of species who failed, the detritus of nature's experiments. The vast majority of species are rewarded for their efforts with extinction, and replacement by a species better suited to prevailing conditions.The following are proven facts concerning life on Earth: Replication, Variation, and Selection. We Darwinists can look at the world as it is and see 'grandeur in this view of Life,' regardless of your opinion that this perspective on Nature is cynical or reductionist.Higher purpose? Direction? Intelligent Design? You believe they apply to the natural world, but you can't seem to get Nature to confirm your belief. Nature doesn't need any of your beliefs to make it as amazing as it is. It does it all by itself.------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerco es el Rey.

Have we witnessed a speciation event in the IDC camp or has a subgroup always existed that appear to resemble theistic evolutionists? At least Barry and Warren here seem to admit that evolution occurs, they just argue the notion that it's a purposeless process.This is possibly a more insidious form of IDC than the strain that lacks the evolutionary camouflage. When it's convenient to formulate an argument from ignorance, they can claim that something is inaccessible to Darwinian evolution. If evidence is presented to support the Darwinian model, it's easy to attribute teleology to any phenomenon without fear of contradiction.------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerto es el Rey.

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But, as a beliver in ID, I further say that when you use aluminum or any chemical compound to make something, you are benefiting from the intelligent design that went into creating aluminum, etc.

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First off, you're telling us that even chemical compounds are the result of intelligent design? I would argue that material processes are more than adequate to explain the formation of elementary chemicals.

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Any algorithm that does "design" has merely been designed by it's creator with some part of the knowledge base (intelligence) of the designer embedded in the algorithm.

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Perhaps you should check out Conway's Game of Life and tell me how this dumb three-rule algorithm has been front-loaded with instructions to create its often dazzling designs. In fact, the 'gliders' and other amusing characters in the game are the unpredictable products of three dumb rules, not any purposeful intelligence.Believers under the influence of Intelligent Design Creationism have a hard time telling the difference between human artifacts and natural design. Looking at a natural artifact, we often think we see the hand of an intelligent creator. What we're really seeing is the winner of a million lotteries, the unpredictable output of a series of algorithms. Usually the result is every bit as amazing and unlikely as we'd expect from a purposeless, mindless process such as evolution.------------------
I would not let the chickens cross the antidote road because I was already hospitlized for trying to say this!-Brad McFall